The Thirteenth Floor’s Bloom

My name is Elias, and after my mother, sister, and youngest brother moved north to be with our aunt, I went to live with my older brother, Marcus, and our father in a crumbling high-rise called the Meridian, a block of concrete and rust that was the first of its kind in the country, built in 1948, a monument to post-war optimism that had long since soured. We were on the thirteenth floor, and the building had a strange geometry: the elevator skipped from 12 to 14 on the panel, but the stairs still landed on a landing marked with a faded ’13’. I slept on a pullout couch in the living room because Marcus, paranoid and possessive, refused to share his room, though every night I would sneak into his bed anyway, pressing my back against his, because the living room felt wrong, like the air itself was holding its breath.

Our unit had a history. The previous tenants were a couple and their young son. One afternoon, the man came home to find his girlfriend with another man. In a rage, he slit her throat, but she survived—the blade catching the curve of her jaw—and then he stepped off the balcony, plummeting thirteen stories to the courtyard below. The woman and the son moved away, but the stain of it lingered. I heard about it from a neighbor, old Mrs. Koval, who spoke in hushed tones and crossed herself whenever she passed our door. I didn’t think much of it at first. The apartment was just a rental, and the city was full of tragedies.

About a month in, the couch began to itch. Not a physical itch, but a feeling of being watched, of a cold draft that seemed to originate from the cushions themselves. I started waking up at 3:33 AM, a time that became a ritual. The first time, I saw a figure standing by the window—a tall, wavering silhouette that didn’t belong to the streetlights. It was just a shadow, but it had a weight, a presence that made my skin crawl. I blinked, and it was gone. I told Marcus the next morning, and he shrugged, saying I was dreaming. But that night, when I snuck into his room, he was already awake, staring at the ceiling. ‘I felt it too,’ he whispered. ‘Something passed through the wall.’

Then the plants started dying. We had a few potted plants on the windowsill—a spider plant, a fern, a sad little cactus. Within a week, they all withered, their leaves curling and turning black, as if drained of life. I found a strange growth in the soil of the fern: a small, pale mushroom with a cap like a tiny bell, and when I touched it, it crumbled to dust that smelled like rotting meat. I threw the plants out, but the feeling of sickness lingered. The air in the living room grew thick, and I began to avoid it during the day, jumping from the kitchen to the hallway to the bedroom, as if the living room were a pit.

One evening, Dad was working late, and Marcus was out with friends. I was alone, and the apartment felt vast and hostile. I decided to take a shower, hoping the hot water would cleanse the unease. As I stood in the steamy bathroom, I heard a sound from the living room: a faint, wet slap, like something heavy hitting the floor. I wrapped a towel around my waist and crept out. The living room was empty, but on the pulled-out couch, in the center of the mattress, was a dark, wet stain that spread slowly, like blood being absorbed into fabric. I touched it, and my fingers came away with a slick, dark liquid that smelled like copper and old pennies. I recoiled, and then the stain vanished, leaving the mattress dry and clean.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay on the couch, staring at the ceiling, when I heard a child’s laughter—soft, high, and utterly innocent. It came from the balcony. I got up, my heart pounding, and peered through the sliding glass door. The balcony was empty, but on the railing sat a small, decrepit doll, its porcelain face cracked, its dress stained. I didn’t remember ever seeing it before. I slid the door open to pick it up, and as my hand closed around it, the doll’s head turned, and its empty eye sockets fixed on me. A voice, not the doll’s but a woman’s, whispered in my ear: ‘He’s still falling.’

I dropped the doll and stumbled back. The doll lay on the balcony floor, face up, and I saw that its small mouth was open, and inside, instead of a tongue, there was a single, perfect, red rose, its petals unfolding as if blooming in real time. The rose grew, its thorny stem pushing out from between the doll’s lips, and a sweet, heady scent filled the air, a smell that was both intoxicating and cloying, like perfume over decay. The rose continued to grow, its stem curling and branching, until it covered the entire balcony, a thorny thicket that pressed against the glass. I screamed, and the glass cracked under the pressure. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the rose withered, turning to ash in seconds, leaving only a faint impression on the floor.

Marcus came home to find me huddled in a corner, shaking. I told him everything, and for the first time, he believed me. He admitted he’d been feeling a presence too, a cold hand on his shoulder at night, a whisper of a name he couldn’t hear. We decided to investigate the apartment’s history further. We found old newspaper clippings in the basement, in a dusty filing cabinet. The article about the murder-suicide was there, but it had a detail the neighbor hadn’t mentioned: the woman had a son, and after the attack, the boy was taken by social services. But there was a follow-up story, dated a year later: the boy had been found in a vacant lot, dead, his body covered in thorny vines, a single rose growing from his chest. The authorities dismissed it as a bizarre accident, but the look in the boy’s eyes in the accompanying photo—a wide, knowing stare—made my blood run cold.

The apartment seemed to grow darker. The shadows in the corners deepened, and we began to hear a slow, rhythmic dripping in the walls, even when the pipes were dry. I started seeing the figure more often, always near the living room window, always facing the courtyard below. It wore a suit, old-fashioned, and its head was tilted at an unnatural angle, as if its neck was broken. It never spoke, but I felt an overwhelming sadness, a grief so profound it threatened to swallow me. One night, Marcus and I were both in the living room, watching TV to distract ourselves, when the television turned off by itself. The screen reflected our images, but in the reflection, behind us, stood the figure, and it was holding a rose. Then the screen went black.

We couldn’t take it anymore. We begged Dad to move, but he dismissed our fears, saying we were just stressed. He refused to leave, and so we stayed, but we slept in the same room, the door barricaded with furniture. The activity escalated. One night, we woke to find the entire living room carpet covered in a single thorny vine, which snaked toward our room, its barbs glistening. We hacked at it with a kitchen knife, but it regenerated, and we retreated to the bedroom, feeling its presence outside the door like a held breath.

Then, on a night when the moon was full, I had a dream. In the dream, I was the man who had jumped. I stood on the balcony, looking down at the courtyard, and I felt a profound despair, a hopelessness that wasn’t mine but was overwhelming. I wasn’t alone—on the railing stood a child, my son, smiling, holding a rose. I reached for him, and the railing gave way, and I fell. I woke with a jolt, gasping, and found myself on the living room floor, the pullout couch empty behind me. Marcus was shaking me, his face pale. ‘You were sleepwalking,’ he said. ‘You opened the balcony door.’ I looked at the door; it was open, and the warm night air blew in, carrying the smell of roses. On the floor, where I had been lying, was a single red petal.

We didn’t sleep anymore. We sat up, watching the balcony, waiting. At dawn, a knock at the apartment door. When we opened it, no one was there, but on the doorstep was a small, white envelope. Inside was a photograph: an old photo of the family that lived here before—the man, the woman, and the son, all smiling. But in the photo, the man’s face was blurred, and behind the family, in the background, a figure hung from the balcony, a silhouette with a twisted neck. On the back, in elegant, cursive handwriting, were the words: ‘He’s still falling.’

We left that day, despite Dad’s protests. We moved to a motel on the other side of town, and we never went back. But the apartment followed us. We’d find rose petals in our luggage, and every night, we’d hear the drip of the faucet, even when we turned it off. The smell of roses would waft through the vents. And sometimes, in the mirror, we’d catch a glimpse of a thin man in a suit, holding a rose, standing just behind our shoulders, always falling, never landing.

I know now that the apartment was a wound in the world, a place where a tragedy had rooted and bloomed. The man’s despair, his anger, his love—they all coalesced into a presence that fed on the living, drawing them to the edge, to the fall. I don’t sleep anymore. I lie awake, listening to the drip, feeling the cold touch of a phantom hand on my shoulder, and I think about the rose that grew from a boy’s chest—beautiful, terrible, and eternal. And I wait for the day when the ground will rush up to meet me, and I’ll finally understand what the man saw when he let go.